Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals has chartered a vessel to load crude oil from Iraq, the first Indian state-owned refiner to do so since the partial reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, three shipping sources said.
MRPL has booked the Aframax tanker Jasmin Joy to load crude from Iraq's Basrah oil terminal on July 19-20, the sources said.
Indian state refiners have been struggling to secure ships to load crude from ports on the west of the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway through which roughly a fifth of the world's oil and gas supplies transited before the Israel-Iran conflict disrupted shipping in the region.
In June, fellow state-owned refiner Indian Oil Corporation failed to receive any offers in a tender seeking a VLCC to lift oil from Iraq and deliver to Paradip port on India's east coast. It subsequently issued a force majeure on the cargo.
MRPL, which operates a 300,000 barrel-per-day refinery in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, did not immediately respond to a Reuters email seeking comment.
(Reporting by Nidhi Verma and Florence Tan; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)